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Topic: Question for our Aussies (Read 2338 times)

I was just reading the sad news regarding the death of the band member from Men At Work.

In an online article, it mentioned that there was once a lawsuit/settlement re their song Down Under being very similar to the Kookaburra song. While I'm not in Australia, I remembered singing the song as a kid and it didn't seem remotely similar. So I looked them up on Youtube - same thing. It's kind of puzzling.

Aussie here, as far as i am aware, there is only one melody to the Kookaburra song. The whole lawsuit was weird - many people do not believe they are the similar at all and its a bit controversial as the people suing the Men at Work bought the copyright to the Kookaburra song after the Down Under song was released.

To be honest, I always thought it was deliberate because it was a true Aussie thing in a song about being Aussie, KWIM? So although I thought the lawsuit was unreasonable, I was kind of "well of course that's the kookaburra melody!" I thought it was homage, not plagiarism. But that's not my call of course.

It's not a very close resemlance, but it's definitely there, and as Caellach said - why shouldn't it be?

It's been considered very irritating because the original woman who wrote the song never ever recieved any royalties for its use - because she didn't charge them. Only after her death (and long after "Down Under" was released) did Larrikan music get hold of the copyright. Even then it wasn't until the late 00s that it was pointed out on a music trivia show (curse you, Spicks'n'Specks!) did anyone even NOTICE the similarity. It's one of those things that, once it's pointed out you see it, but not until then. THEN they've suddenly gone "Oh noes! They've ripped us off!"

To put this in context, during the America's cup challenge in 1983 (84?) this song was basically the national anthem. If you went a day without hearing it it would be a miracle. No-one even noticed this 'rip off' because, well, although awesome, it's not the point of the song.